5/10/17

1933: Passing of American Baha’i Keith Ransom-Kehler, in Iran

Keith Ransom-Kehler died on 23rd October 1933. (Baha’i News, November 1933) Born in 1876, Keith became a Baha’i in 1921, and after the death of her second husband in 1923 became increasingly active as a Baha’i speaker and teacher. In 1929 she travelled to the Caribbean, and in 1930 began an extensive world tour to promote the Faith. Shoghi invited her to Haifa in 1932, and gave her a special mission to go to Iran on behalf of the American National Spiritual Assembly to petition the shah to ease or lift the restrictions on the Baha'is. She stayed in Iran for over a year, but her efforts were unavailing. Exhausted and in poor health she eventually succumbed to smallpox, and was buried in Isfahan, Iran, near to the graves of the King and Beloved martyrs. Shoghi Effendi named her posthumously as a Hand of the Cause, and as the first American to have the spiritual station of a martyr. 
(Adapted from 'A Concise Encyclopedia of the Baha’i Faith', by Peter Smith)